Top civil servants made formal protests over spending by Labour Government in its dying days

I would have expected this story to be run with big-time by the Right-wing press, but it is in fact The Guardian which splashes on it this morning:

Civil servants came under increasing pressure from ministers in the dying months of the Labour
government to carry out expensive orders that they disagreed with and
responded by submitting an unprecedented number of formal protests in
the run-up to the general election.

The five separate protests
came in the form of written ministerial directions – requested by the
most senior civil servant in a department when they disagree with a
minister's decision so strongly that they refuse to be accountable for
it.

The revelation adds weight to the coalition government's
claims that ministers were profligate in the final weeks of the last
government.

Such ministerial orders are rare and signify an
irresolvable dispute between a minister and his most senior civil
servant. Whitehall sources told the Guardian there had been five this
year. Public records also show nine last year and five between 2008 and
2005.